I've been working on and off in a resource page for artists for a long time and recently finished one of the seccions. I'll be updating more often there, but anyways, make sure to subscribe to my mailing list for notifications.

The plan is to put all my favorite tutorials, websites, articles, videos, materials and tools in a list, easy to find for anyone interested.

When we work for someone else, be it a giant company or a neighbor who wants a portrait of all of their dogs, the 20 of them, it's a matter of time before you start to feel a little empty inside. I'm sure many of us would not even consider working for someone if money was not a problem. As creators, we always have stories to tell, things we want to do, personal projects that we want to develop. And the fact that many times, the work is similar to the one before it or cliché after cliché does not help at all.

That's where the title of the article comes in. One way to continue to have the strength to get up every morning to go to your desk and paint "Random knight 110" is to find something personal in that illustration that motivates you, that you feel it is something you have to do, what you need for yourself as an artist. Sometimes there is not much to get out of, especially with those clients who do not give you any freedom. In those cases, I usually focus on the technical aspects. If there is something I want to improve, a brush that I want to use more often, if I want to work faster and I need to find those points where I lose time. There I focus my attention.

Other cases, such as the painting I want to talk about, there is a lot of space to create more "honest" things. This illustration is one of those works where the line between personal and commercial are very diffuse for me.

At the moment of reading the description of this commission I felt a very special connection with the subject. A warrior who mourns the loss of his dinosaur companion.A little backhistory, less than a year ago, I lost my little pet, a dachshund. It lived with my family in Cuba and one of the reasons why I traveled that year was knowing the news of how bad he health was at the time. He was very old for his race and once they start to get bad there is not much that can be done for them. Unfortunately, I didn't get there in time, he died a week before I arrived to Cuba.

It was a bit difficult to face that memory again, but it helped me to focus on the image from a very personal perspective.

I started with two sketches, for this illustration it was clear which of the two worked better. I know that in other previous posts I have spoken that if there is one that you like above the others, just send that one. But I already have experience working with this art director to know that she has similar tastes and I prefer, whenever I can, give alternatives, just in case there is something from the other sketch that interests her to use in the final. Maybe she doesn't like the pose of one, but she likes the design of the character, or the scale of values etc

There were couple of stressful moments, especially to maintain the balance between details and readability. From the sketch to the final illustration it does not change much in general aspects, only slight adjustments in the warrior's pose. In the sketch he is less vulnerable, he takes a second to say goodbye, as if he were passing by. In the second, he is more in the moment, he takes his time, he wants to say goodbye to someone important. I also changed the type of helmet, to see his face better and closed the eye of the dinosaur to avoid calling so much attention from the center of interest. Below the timelapse of the illustration.

In part, it's a very rare feeling to connect so much with a commissioned piece for a product, to leave a piece of you in something as big as Magic. But on the other, I'm glad to have received this card in particular, which in a very special way helped me to say goodbye to my little one.

I don't know for how long you follow me, but here's a bit of history.Last year, when I came across the books of Brandon Sanderson, I had a few months that every free minute I had was dedicated to drawing pictures of their stories.It is nowadays, one of my favorite writers, and almost everything he writes, I try to devour almost immediately. His writing style and the ideas he shapes are the kind of stories that I enjoy the most, and that one day I would love to transmit with mine. Last inktober I made around 30 drawings based only on his work. And when he was here in Barcelona, I was able to give him one of those drawings.In May I was contacted by the art director of Dragonsteel production (Brandon's company) and illustrator of much of the graphic material that appears in the books, to discuss the possibility of licensing some of these drawings for use in the art gallery of the editions for collectors.

Already, the simple idea that my work would apear in one of his books left me speechless, so imagine my reaction when the talk evolved from licensing to commissioning a new piece for Volume 2 of Mistborn ...I had been trying for quite some time to make some fan art related to these magnificent books that so many good moments have left me. But the work at the time was really constant and left me no room for it. So a commision to do so was a dream come true!I immediately started the task, starting to work on the sketches. In Mistborn's second book, there are many brutal scenes I wanted to illustrate, but I only had space for an illustration, and taking into account that many other artists are also attracted by these stories, it is very likely that the first ideas are already floating around the Internet.Not for being the most original of the world, but for the way I was captivated, I wanted to focus especially on the bonds that are created between Vin and the Kandra "OreSeur", which takes the form of a huge black dog. The relationship of these two does not start very well in the book, but little by little it takes a course of deep friendship and respect on both sides.

By the way, sorry for the low quality of the photos of the process, were made with the phone without paying much attention. Some have a very marked distortion or colors very far from reality. The one that comes closest is the last photo of the post.

Ink sketches with the first ideas for the painting.

Color study, just to have a better idea of the general saturation, although I din't stick to it too much.

My second goal with this job was to continue working with oil paintings. I already had some piece for Magic by the date in that technique (still to come out) and I wanted to continue experimenting with the medium. With this piece I tried the indirect painting method. Certainly more laborious than the others, but the result (and seeing it with eyes now) was completely worth it. I started doing a pencil drawing, to define the design, general values and details well. I do not usually make them as detailed normally, but with this piece I wanted to have control over the details, and not try to design with the painting as in digital, obviously because of the nature of the medium that would come later.

Indirect painting is worked by layers, the first dedicated to the values and then little by little building the colors on top. The luminosity achieved by this technique is unrivaled with other more direct methods. A pity that the photos can't transmit this feeling through , but if you have been in front of some oil painting of the last century you will know the effect that I speak. That light that radiates from the surface, especially the skins.These are some of the captures I was taking of the process. First, by moving the most prominent lines of the drawing to the MDF panel and then the first layer of paint.

Although the worst part of this process is waiting, in this case it wasn't so bad. I am not a fan of the secatives and I didn't want to use in this painting, there wasn't much of a hurry and as far as work, I remember that I had two more paintings for Magic. Luego viene la segunda capa de valores y al secar, empezar a introducir algunos colores.

2nd pass of values

Starting to introduce some colors.

As you can see, the dog was the one that suffered the most changes during the whole journey. But the result is quite close to that of pencil drawing. From here I did not have many problems, I just followed the plan I had from the beginning. I had the Ipad right next to me to go looking at the references while I was doing and compare the color in real time